


Umbara

by DarthLivion (DistantShenanigans)



Series: Touch Starved verse [2]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Guilt, Other, Past Character Death, Pre-Relationship, Probably some PTSD description but I don't have it and don't know, Survivor Guilt, Talks about Umbara, armor pieces as memorabilia, mentions of abuse, mentions of original character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 01:26:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12222936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantShenanigans/pseuds/DarthLivion
Summary: When Hera finds pieces of Dogma's and Waxer's armor among Rex's things, she finally asks the question she and Numa have been wondering for years, and Rex finally opens up a little more about the campaign that's haunted him for almost two decades.





	Umbara

**Author's Note:**

> Please take note of the tags, and you do have to read Touch first.
> 
>  **Edit:** did some minor grammar/spelling edits.
> 
>  
> 
> ****IN TCW TAG BECAUSE YOU KIND OF NEED TO HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE CLONE WARS TO TRULY UNDERSTAND. WORDS DON'T DO IT JUSTICE****

It had been a few weeks since the incident in the caves, where the others on the crew learned he was touch starved. He'd managed to avoid most of the questions, but he no longer stayed in his own bunk, but rather shared the small one that belonged Hera and Kanan. They insisted on it, and Rex couldn't fight them on it, not when he desperately wanted to be held. After a week of sleeping in their bunk, his things slowly started to move into their room, before Commander Sato insisted he just formally move in with them.

Hera had been all for it, and Kanan had agreed that it made sense, since they weren't planning on letting Rex sleep alone anymore. So, a larger bunk had been acquired, and the three of them had moved in together.

There were two bunks, a large one to fit all three of them, and a smaller one in case one of them needed some space. A desk was put in, and was already covered with work to be done. There was a small weapon's chest, where their weapons went into. A closet and a dresser were suited for them, and it was filled in a mix-match assortment of all of their clothes, and Rex's armor went into the bottom of the closet.

“What's this?” Hera had found the mismatched pieces of armor among Rex's things that he had unpacked but had yet to put away, and Rex's heart tightened.

Those pieces belonged to Dogma and Waxer, one the 501st blue, and the other the 212th gold.

He had a collection of armor pieces, most of them hand plates, from various brothers he had lost over the years. Boil had gifted him Waxer's left hand plate. Tup had given him Dogma's right. He had Fives' helmet, resting in the box nearby. When he had left Seelos, Gregor had insisted he take the box of armor and holos. Wolffe had agreed, and so the box of armor pieces and Fives' helmet followed him from ship to base.

“A clone trooper helmet?” Kanan asked, pulling the helmet out of the box.

“It's Fives' helmet.” Rex said, and Kanan understood. By now, all of the team knew about Fives' sacrifice.

“And the armor pieces? Are they his, too?” Hera asked, and Rex shook his head.

“No. Their owners were scattered across the 501st and 212th, some from the wolfpack.” He explained, “The gray arm bracer, it belonged to Wolffe. He gifted it to me before we left Seelos. Gregor gave me an arm bracer to go with it.”

“What about this one?” Hera lifted up Waxer's hand plate.

“... That belonged to Waxer.” He said softly, setting Kanan's now-folded shirt down on his lap.

“Numa's friend?” Hera asked, looking at him. Rex looked down at his lap, at Kanan's shirt.

“Yes.” He wasn't surprised, when both of them joined him on the bed.

“What happened to him?” She asked, “One day, Boil had come back to Ryloth to live, clearly upset and mourning, but he never...” He never explained what happened. Never said when or how Waxer died. Rex understood his reasoning; he'd never spoken about Fives, until Ezra asked how they knew about the bio chips in their heads. He never spoke about Hardcase or Dogma at all. He had spoken about pieces of the Umbara campaign, but never all of it. Just the abuse the Jedi General had done to them all. Never about Waxer, or Hardcase, or Dogma.

“It was during Umbara...” Rex said, voice soft.

“With the traitor General?” Kanan asked, and it made Rex's heart tighten to know that Kanan believed him now, when he said the Jedi leading them was a traitor.

General Kenobi hadn't even believed him, despite his begging to spare Dogma, that Dogma had done what he had to protect them, to _save them_.

He did after General Kharo spoke up against Krell, but it had been far too late when Kharo had arrived. Even after that, not many believed them.

“Yes... It had been dangerous, and General Skywalker was asked to return to Coruscant. He took Commander Tano with him.” Rex said, voice soft. “Eventually, we took over the Umbarans' facility, and we were told that Umbarans were taking the armor off of our dead brothers.”

He could still hear the blaster fires, and the screaming to stop, that they were clones, that they were all brothers.

“Rex?” Kanan asked, voice soft.

“It wasn't until we were halfway through shooting each other that I realized the enemy we were shooting at wasn't the enemy.” Rex said, eyes watering. “The traitor pitted us against each other. We had killed our own _brothers_...” His voice cracked, he knew it did, and Hera's head was there on his shoulder, and Kanan's arm was looped with his own, the Jedi's hand holding his.

“It's okay, Rex... You're safe now...” Kanan's voice never wavered, remaining low and gentle, as if he were trying to not spook a loth-cat.

“I was called over to Waxer.” He said, “We talked, for as long as he could, compared our stories, but in the end...” He let his tears fall, and Hera turned to hug him fully, tears of her own wetting his blacks.

Kanan held him, too, and didn't stop whispering about how Rex was okay.

He wasn't okay. He hadn't been in a long time. He'd kept everything bottled up, and lied to himself for far too long.

He would be, one day, if Hera and Kanan kept holding him, and talked with him.

But not tonight.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Kharo's not really too important, but basically is Krell's former padawan who knew how fucking sick he was, long before Umbara happened.


End file.
